Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

A sharp pressure starts to creep into my mind, and these memories begin to become clouded by a silver and golden light around the edges of my consciousness.

I fight back, and look deeper into the enormous Primordial Tree, and even see the figure of a bright green woman that appears to be stepping out from its trunk. Her body looks like a hologram, sparkling with white and yellow light.

Her true core is a deep purple color, but there are fragments of silver threads flickering inside of it.

When the Demon holding these memories swoops down toward the base of the tree, I see his whole body covered in glyphs, and his purple core looks the same, shimmering with flickers of silver threads inside it too.

Both of them hold Royal Vibrations, but they clash with each other on a whole new level. It can only be described as High Royal Vibrations. Their Primordial Auras are so rich and domineering, they fill the atmosphere further than I can sense in the memories all throughout this zone.

My mind is pulled out of this trance once the auras collide, and I cannot withstand the information any longer.

I can feel the rest of the memories play out in my subconscious, where they must have battled, but all of it is burned away into a blur.

When I come to and look around, my eyes instantly lock with Maria’s, and I see a large amount of Source Resin flowing through them. All of her energy pathways are full and sparkling; even her greater form refracts light to create rainbow sparkles that dance.

For some reason, the timid nature of this Resin has shifted. It dances around with pride, even sticking onto some of the glyphs that glow on the outside of her soul.

When I look away, I start to feel the presence of the Primordial Trees again, but they don’t feel as intimidating. After seeing one thousands of times larger, these saplings feel very approachable.

With the increase in my glyphs’ proficiency and refinement of our ether pools, I reflexively activate my Astral Form. Maria mirrors me out of instinct, and we both begin pulling far more purple divine threads into our bodies and expand our reach by thousands of times.

Without releasing my Sacred Body, I am still hardly even visible compared to the two monsters behind us. However, this shift increases our senses drastically. Information about the forest around us pours in, and my mind seeps into the Primordial Trees.

It’s no longer completely overwhelming to pour my thoughts all the way through their trunks and come out the other side.

The intimidating Primordial Aura they give off is not out of anger or a wish to exert dominance on us; it is just their natural state. In fact, once I truly start to feel the souls inside these trees, I feel sadness. Each one of them is slightly different, like they’re worn out, tired, waiting for something or someone, and there is a very faint sense of dwindling hope.

When I try to talk with them, sending out telepathy probes, nothing comes back.

It’s like trying to talk with my dormant sword…

In the background of my senses, I hear Vardon speaking in a low tone.

“Impossible. More of their Legacy was awakened by Demonic Glyphs… Ulgar… who are these humans…?”

“I don’t know. But look—they hold astral forms like ours. They are on our side.”

Both the fiery Mammoth and Black Ogre look down at the glyphs of a partially awakened legacy all over our bodies in confusion. Yet, I can tell their perception abilities aren’t as great as mine. When I turn back away from the trees and toward them, I reply with a word of reassurance.

“I understand your concerns, but Ulgar, your prediction about our glyphs being an old legacy is true. It’s one that came from far before the Dryads… The only reason we’re able to stimulate part of it from the Demon’s Glyphs is because the Demon’s Legacy was copied from ours…”

The two Ancient monsters look at each other, and with my improved senses, I even feel a warm streak of white Griffin’s aura watching from high above in the sky.

Vardon speaks first.

“Then how did you improve from intercepting my aura upon our first meeting…?”

I sigh, and look down to my chest. “I would show you if I could, but my soul sword is not answering my calls at the moment. It triggered a manual upgrade in order to absorb some artifacts that were greater than its capabilities at the time. One of which was an Amplifier from the Red Hydra’s Race… It reacted to your aura, so I learned by proxy.”

The Mammoth grunts but seems satisfied.

However, Ulgar interjects.

“I am curious then, how could you have interpreted the Black Ogre Clan’s Glyphs, and even the Elven Awakening artifact, and the glyphs from the ascended insects and lizards, or even the glyphs coming off the Primordial Trees themselves. Resonating with one or maybe two would be impressive, but it is like you are connected to every Legacy…”

I think deeply to myself, and begin bouncing questions back and forth with Maria through a telepathy link.

At first we surmise maybe it has to do with all of the races my links of loyalty are connected to, or possibly more artifacts that my sword has devoured. However, without my soul’s interference, Maria can interpret these glyphs too. It has to be because of that legacy, but I answer after a long sigh.

“I don’t know. It’s possible the legacy we found is connected to them in some way too… You said it yourself, you’ve never seen any evidence of races before the Dryads with your own eyes. If this is the Originator’s Legacy, then I have no knowledge or proof to rely on either…”

Vardon’s eyes open wide.

“You’re carrying an Originator’s Legacy?!”

The ground shakes with excitement as his rust-colored aura floods out uncontrollably.

I raise both my hands, and Maria does too. We push streams of red and blue, extremely refined celestial energy through a few more compression arrays, and thousands of perfectly formed glyphs begin flooding out from our palms.

A perfect layered wall of protection glyphs rises in front of us, and blocks the intense shockwave of rust-colored aura, pushing it off to the sides like we’re parting a raging river.

The moment Vardon realizes his mistake, he pulls his aura back in.

This was at least a hundred times more powerful than the aura felt when we first met, yet only a small layer of the front of the array we formed even cracked. Once the atmosphere calms down, we both mimic the barrier’s reversal arrays and break down all of the glyphs we just summoned into tiny pieces, then uncompress them before letting them flood back into our ether pools.

The reversal process takes almost five full seconds, far longer than the near-instant activation; however, Vardon and Ulgar are speechless once again.

“A perfect reversal… There isn’t a drop of ether left behind…”

Maria shrugs at Ulgar’s remark, then looks over to Vardon with a glare.

“All that because we potentially hold a Legacy from an Ancient Race? I don’t know if we even do for sure, and neither does Jay… If we find out, you’ll know just as soon as we do. We just made it to this Zone hours ago, and need to awaken our Glyph Imprints as fast as possible before the Imperials really find us. I doubt those guards are anywhere near the ears or eyes of the Family Head. It’d be convenient if our allies didn’t kill us first!”

She ends this with a smirk. I nod, and turn back away from the barrier entrance we came from.

“Yeah, close call with the outburst there… but I still have to thank you for the backup when Ulgar was fighting before. I don’t know if you can tell, but we based our shielding barriers off yours.”

This proud Mammoth can’t believe he’s being talked to like this by a pair of humans; his aura starts to fluctuate with a mixture of anger, surprise, and disdain. Yet, Ulgar’s laugh breaks the tension.

“They’re right. Come on. A few Outer Guards getting killed won’t set off any major alarms, but when a cleanup team comes and finds their Essence, Cores, and Weapons are missing… they will know something is up. We have to act fast. If this was what they had waiting for us at the entrance, once we get near the actual Domain I’m aiming for… well… you two better get more proficient at those shielding arrays.”

My hands tingle with the heat from summoning the most amount of active glyphs I ever have, and I already feel more experienced with a million other possibilities running through my mind.

I just nod and look off where Ulgar’s body is turning.

“The next time we see another Outer Guard, I think we’re going to be able to do a lot more than defend.”